Egyptian revolution through the eyes of an India scholar

Mar 02, 2011

Andréi Volodin

special to RIR

The
drama playing out in Egypt is described in various ways: a revolt, a youth
protest against the “last pharaoh” Hosni Mubarak and institutions that have
outlived their age and even a “popular uprising”. Even the smartest
journalists, however, fail to answer the most important issue: the social
nature of the current political crises in the Arab world.

What
message are the events in Egypt sending to the world? Egypt is not only the
leader of the Arab world, but also a country where the domestic state of
affairs proves crucial for the new polycentric world. Is it an extreme
expression of the grassroots discontent of the people with corruption, lack of
political opportunities and lack of a viable future for young people? Or do we
see a transformation of a traditional popular revolt into more complicated,
“advanced” forms of social organisation?

Soviet historians usually distinguish
political revolutions (those that drastically change the character of a
political system) and social ones that signal fundamental changes in the entire
system of social relations (in other words, a paradigm shift in social
development). Social theory would have it that both Egypt and Tunisia are
examples of incomplete political revolutions. So deep has their impact been on
the entire Arab world that even the tangential Yemen, the relatively prosperous
Bahrain and the apparently invincible Libya (which followed “a third way”) are
now in turmoil.

The interim results of the “Egyptian
catharsis” can (and must) be formulated by elections free of any administrative
(or any other) pressure.

The political processes in Egypt
highlight the problem of civil society in the Arab world. Russian Arab scholars
believe that there are signs of civil consciousness emerging in the region and
that these societies can no longer be described in terms of the traditional
concepts of the “traditional/stationary society”. The idea that gained
acceptance in the West since the mid-1990s is that there is a special type of
civil society in the East, including Arab countries. Russian philosopher Yuri
Krasin thus describes the “civil” problem of transition societies: “One view is
that civil society is an exclusively European phenomenon… the Czech-born
English ethnologist Ernest Gellner believed that other civilizations have
alternatives to the civil society in the shape of Sharia law, tribes and clans.
This is most probably a delusion. But it reflects the real problem of the specific
ways societies manifest their energy in various civilizations. That is true not
only of the process of civil society and democracy emerging, but of the
outcomes of that process.”

The social upheaval in Egypt became
possible due to several factors acting at once: a dramatic deterioration in the
standards of living after soaring growth in food prices, cynical vote-rigging
during parliamentary elections (November 2010), blocking upward social mobility
for Egyptian youth (between 20% and 40% are unemployed, including people with a
higher education), which was an inevitable consequence of the model of economic
development adopted by the ruling circles. It is true that by no means the
entire city of Cairo came out against “the last pharaoh”, but others may counter
by saying that there was a need for it: 7–8% of the active (politically
engaged) population can set an example and lead the passive and the
vacillating, as the experience of the 1789 French Revolution has shown. This
historical agent is the potential “locomotive” of democratic change in Egypt.

The future of the largest Arab world
country hinges on how open Egyptian society is to both technical and social
political innovation. In my opinion the composite character of the present-day
Egyptian society holds a promise of a positive reaction to external impulses
for development. The complex symbiosis of the ancient Egyptian civilization,
Islam, the Western experience of French influence and British protectorate
deprives modern Egyptian society of “Islamic homogeneity” and makes it open to
the influence from other civilizations, including the ideas of democracy. It is
not fortuitous that Mubarak has for many years been described as “the last
pharaoh”. Egypt is a large society of 85m people. In such large societies there
is great inertia of social processes because of their sheer size, which makes
the evolutionary trajectory of transformations in the country preferable both
for the people and for the authorities.

The international impact of the
Egyptian revolution is comparable not so much with the Islamic revolution in
Iran (1978–1979) as with India gaining independence in 1947. The Indian press
in its coverage of the political process in Egypt has for a reason mainly
carried articles of a general assessment, because the Indians know about the
events from electronic media. The events in Egypt in late January-early
February reminded me of the three-act development of the national movement in
India that followed the “pressure-compromise” scheme.

All the main political forces were
taking part in the revolutionary events, which thereby became amenable to the
social logic of the Egyptian revolution. The Islamist organisations, and
especially their political actions merit special attention. Looking at the current
activities of the Muslim Brotherhood and similar groups, we have to admit that
the revolutionary events followed a “laboratory” scenario, with opposition
leaders and political experts urging the Muslim Brotherhood to transform their
movement into a full-fledged party that follows the rules of the game accepted
in parliamentary democracies. For their part the Muslim Brotherhood stressed
the creative functions of Islam, which prevents the atomization of society and
strengthens the bonds of social solidarity, especially among the grassroots.

The new authorities seemed to be ready
to integrate Islamists into the country’s political system. The moderate
Islamist party Al-Wasat Al-Jadid (“the New Centre”) has already been
registered. Society expects from Islamists a concrete programme for social and
economic change in their country.

Finally, there is unlikely to be a
fundamental change in Egypt’s foreign policy orientation. On the one hand,
various groups in society are now much more confident, which promises greater
independence in international politics. The readiness of the United States and
its allies to accept a “non-liberal democracy” as a viable form of social
organisation in Egypt indirectly shows that the West is ready to take the
country for what it is going to become. On the other hand, Egypt hardly needs
to change its foreign policy in any substantial way. Meanwhile, a change of
nuances and accents in foreign policy will be readily accepted by other
countries.

The experience of a political revolution
in Egypt shows that the authorities must develop and improve democratic
institutions. Inaction is fraught with political upheavals and unpredictable
consequences.

Andrei
Volodin is Senior Research Fellow with the Russian Academy of Sciences’ (RAS) Institute
of World Economy and International Relations, Head of the Oriental Studies
Centre, Diplomatic Academy under the Russian Foreign Ministry.